To make things clear first:

I thought your VFAQ is a good idea and I even contributed to it with a few
Moray UDO related things.
I *still* think it is a good idea and a good thing to have.

BUT: With creating the VFAQ you simply create a voluntary service maintained
by yourself, which may or may not be used by other people, at *their*
discretion - not yours! The mere existance of the VFAQ does in no way compel
people to *use* it - of course they should (if they know about it), but if
they don't, it's their problem.

For people asking questions that are already answered in the VFAQ that
means: If you don't use the VFAQ you risk that nobody answers your
questions, since everybody knows it is answered in the VFAQ.
For people answering questions that are already answered in the VFAQ: Well,
if they have the time to spare? Why not?
And: Contributing to the VFAQ is equally voluntarily as maintaining it. I
don't remember me having agreed to anything like that with my contribution I
will from then on always study the VFAQ closely and will always point people
to it. Quite frankly: I don't have the time to study the VFAQ, so I don't
know which questions are answered in it, so I can't point people to it
either...

One must keep in mind, that there are always new people coming to a
newsgroup: It's not always the same guys hanging around all the time where
one could truly get mad if such a person would ask a question with an
obvious answer (I can imagine the sarcastic replies we would read if
"Linkmaster" Ken would post a question asking for the URL of, say, Moray, or
if Ron Parker would ask if it was possible to get access to POV-Ray's
sourcecode).

For such a new member of the group, the question actually is *not* a VFAQ,
not even a FAQ. He probably thinks it is the first time this comes up.
Because let's face it: *Nobody* carefully reads *all* older posts in a group
before posting his own first message.
It is only the requlars that read the same question for the 100th time who
get annoyed, while the poster is not even aware of what he is doing. More
important: The poster is probably not even aware of the *existance* of a
FAQ/VFAQ, so there was no chance he could have checked it first. After all,
the URL to your VFAQ is not exactly something each POV user is informed
about right from the start.

Replying to such an "innocent" frequently-recurring posting in a way that
berates or scoldes the asker is not the way. Simply point him to the FAQ or
ignore him. No more. It is not really friendly to give a new member of a
newsgroup a welcome of the sort that he feels stupid and "newbie" right
away, nor is it the best way to introduce yourself (as a regular he will
probably "meet" later again) to him.

Now, that said, I grant you that you probably had the best intentions of
helping the original poster, and I also know that you post frequently and
helpfully, so please don't see my comments to your replies like I would try
to imply that you are a rude, unhelpful, generally annyoing person - no at
all!

Greetings,
Johannes.

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